Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A dialog between Robert Hunter and Terence McKenna

Robert Hunter was an early volunteer test subject (along with Ken Kesey) for psychedelic chemicals at Stanford University's research covertly sponsored by the CIA in their MKULTRA program. He was paid to take LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline and report on his experiences, which were creatively formative for him:

"Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist... and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell like (must I take you by the hand, every so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resoundingbells....By my faith if this be insanity, then for the love of God permit me to remain insane."

"Terence,in reading your books I was struck with how closely your DMT experiments paralleled my own. I wasn't surprised by the confirmation, as you might guess. Iconsidered myself a serious DMT explorer between 1967-69. I stopped only because I was told to, in no uncertain terms, by the Boss of that place. Three times, in fact, to my dismay. Disobedience was costly. I was informed that I'd been shown all that was mine to know, to use that, and not try to extract more. I've written of the classes and varieties of DMT experience in a chapter of my journal, memoirs, and will send it along at some point. The experiences were commanding and altered my grasp of reality. DMT invokes the various dimensions of its domain through pathways characterized by brisk rhythms."Robert Hunter

This discussion also illustrates how entheogens like DMT are excellent tools to access states of consciousness, but meditation and other yoga practices are the excellent tools to access states, but also evolve to higher stages of consciousness. Am I repeating myself? I guess I am :p